Ophelia’s Place celebrates 15th anniversary with Arizona expansion
By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
Holli Zehring has come a long way, both figuratively and literally.
Fifteen years ago, Zehring and her sister, Nicole, were recovering from eating disorders. Frustrated at the difficulty their family encountered accessing services for mental health and eating disorders, Zehring helped their mother, MaryEllen Clausen, found Ophelia’s Place in Liverpool.
Today, Ophelia’s Place is home to support groups for people struggling with eating disorders and their loved ones and helps connect them with treatment through the Upstate New York Eating Disorder Service.
Now, Zehring is spreading the mission of Ophelia’s Place to Gilbert, Arizona — just outside of Phoenix — where she resides with her husband and two children. Zehring is the director of Ophelia’s Place West, which she has been working to develop for about two years.
“Over the last dozen or so years, I’ve had … people calling and asking how they can duplicate it in their community,” Clausen said. “She’s looking to mirror what we’re doing here.”
Ophelia’s Place will celebrate its 15th anniversary all through 2017, and the Circles of Change Conference in March is a key component of the celebration.
Clausen’s home base is in Liverpool, the location of the original Ophelia’s Place, but she often travels to Arizona to assist Zehring in building relationships with health care providers and supporters for Ophelia’s Place West. In fact, Clausen will be headed west once again in March for the Circles of Change Conference, a two-day event that features a film screening, performances and presentations about “changing the conversation and culture around health, beauty and body image.”
“We’ve created this extension of Ophelia’s Place which is really about empowerment,” Clausen explained. “Circles of Change is about creating change within your circle of influence.”
Society has “normalized eating disorders” by encouraging diet talk, valuing thinness over health and scrutinizing one’s physical appearance, Clausen said. To combat self-hate and body shaming, Circles of Change provides conversation topics and questions to help people broach the issues of body image with their friends and family.
“Let’s encourage and empower each other to swim against the tide, go against the norm, identify what healthy is to them, what beauty is to them,” Clausen said. “There’s a lot of body-positive movements, and we want to be part of that.”
The conference is just one branch of the many efforts Ophelia’s Place has launched to further its mission. In 2009, Café at 407 opened in the same building as Ophelia’s Place. Revenue from the café comprises about 35 percent of the nonprofit’s budget, and the café serves as a safe, loving community gathering space.
“People feel like they can support the work that we do,” Clausen said. “It’s a revenue stream, but also it’s a place for people to feel like they’re part of the solution. The community is a part of the healing process.”
Café at 407 and the Circles of Change website both sell body-positive apparel, art prints and window clings emblazoned with mantras such as “I am enough,” “Every body is beautiful” and “Brilliant, brave, beautiful.” The Circles of Change product line provides about 10 percent of the Ophelia’s Place budget.
Ophelia’s Place has forged connections with other local entities as well. In addition to the organization’s partnership with the Upstate New York Eating Disorder Service to connect people with treatment, the café hosts a group of runners who, led by Todd Robertson, formed the Lake Effect Half Marathon. The annual run raises money for Ophelia’s Place; the 2017 half-marathon takes place Feb. 26.
“[I told Todd], ‘What you’re doing is phenomenal. You’ve made it safe for runners to share their stories and for others to support them,’” Clausen said.
Local businesses are pitching in to support Ophelia’s Place throughout February. The lululemon athletica store at Destiny USA is collecting donations all month and is hosting a “First, Love Yourself: Yoga Flow” class at 9 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 12, at Dharma Yoga in Liverpool. Also, the Sun Auto group will donate a portion of its February sales to Ophelia’s Place.
While there are plenty of ways to help Ophelia’s Place celebrate its 15th anniversary (see sidebar), above all, Clausen encourages people to change the conversation about health and beauty in their own lives.
“It is hard to step in and say, ‘Can we not talk like that?’” she said of combating negative body talk. “Or, talk about why it matters. You wouldn’t talk to someone you hated like that.”
Clausen warned that children are always listening to and watching their parents, so diet talk and criticizing one’s body can lead kids to develop harmful attitudes about weight and body image. Instead of focusing on the negative, Clausen said people should eat mindfully and exercise because it feels good, not as a punishment for indulging in rich foods.
“When they see us labeling food as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ or punishing ourselves, what message does that send?” Clausen said. “If you’re saying, ‘I can’t eat that because I need to lose weight,’ why does that matter?”
Clausen said she was once a chronic, yo-yo dieter who bought into the diet industry’s message of self-hate.
“It wasn’t until I stopped dieting that my weight stabilized,” she said. “I don’t have ‘fat’ clothes and ‘skinny’ clothes in my closet — I just have clothes. I want people to eat what feels right, to eat intuitively, to eat mindfully.”
If you or a loved one is struggling with an eating disorder or body image, visit opheliasplace.org for a self-assessment and more information about support groups and treatment.
